Austin, San Antonio team up to tackle traffic woes

Friday

Regional planners aren't letting a lack of funding stop an ambitious vision for improving travel along the notoriously clogged Interstate 35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio.

The Austin area's Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization and San Antonio-based Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, in partnership with the Texas Department of Transportation, studied for more than a year the best ways to improve commuting within the regions. Ideas include intercity and interregional transit services increasing traffic capacity on U.S. 281 and I-35 and building long distance bikeways.

I-35 through Central Austin ranks the third-highest congested roadway in the state, according to data from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.

The planners developed strategies by focusing on infrastructure, policy and technology solutions, said Roger Beall, deputy director of the Transportation, Planning and Programming Division at the Texas Department of Transportation.

"When we looked at the population projections of the San Antonio and Austin area, by 2050, we'll have the same population, if not more than what Dallas-Fort Worth has today," he said, "So we need to get ahead of the curve ... to take care of our transportation needs."

To better understand those needs, planning organizations are taking steps to align goals, according to a draft of the study, which identifies opportunities through 2045 to improve the commuter experience. "Coordination" and "cooperation" between the two regions are watchwords of the study. Historically, though, both regions have focused on local needs.

The study serves as a reminder that both regions must "start looking at ways we can integrate and build with one another now," said Austin Mayor Steve Adler, vice chairman of the Transportation Policy Board, which governs the area's planning organization

But the study doesn't identify next steps or funding sources.

"This is a higher-level guide, but what you would anticipate is that we would then start moving (toward next steps)," Adler said. "The immediate priority here is going to be high-capacity transit within our city and our region."

State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said that as the two metropolitan areas continue to grow toward each other and into a "mega-region," coordination between planning groups is essential.

"Simple actions like meeting regularly to align similar work underway in each region, beginning to plan together and implementing technology uniformly will have positive impacts with relatively limited resources," said Watson, a former Austin mayor. "However, a big challenge — the biggest challenge — for mobility infrastructure is the lack of available funds."

Among potential funding sources that would seem to be nonstarters in a Republican-led state: increasing the state gas tax, which hasn't changed since 1991, and significant state investment in transit.

Watson and Adler also pointed to Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's opposition to new toll roads, which has shelved a proposal to build toll lanes on I-35.

"The tolled managed lanes were a critical part of the plan to ease congestion and fund the construction. But that's not an option so long as state leadership rejects certain revenue sources," Watson said. "This is a big, once-in-a-generation project and it's not cheap."

"Under the current 10-year plan, we only have about a fourth of the money needed for the I-35 reconstruction," he said. "Short of diverting funding that other regions are expecting, the Legislature will have to take some action, such as raising new revenue, authorizing new debt or seeking private funding. Each of these financing methods have their detractors, but there is no highway fairy, money doesn't grow on trees and we can't get something for nothing."

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